Monolith

Not sure why the negatives. The acting is decent. Effects on the car are cool. Shrug, movie was OK for me. Solid 5 out of 10. I have watched far worse.

The spine of the DVD says "Horror" on it. Totally inaccurate. Monolith is one part survival thriller (low on thrills), and one part science fiction.

Home-wrecking former pop sensation mom is worried her guy is cheating on her, so she drives his armored ultra-high tech SUV with toddler in tow to pay him a visit. She gets re-routed by her "smart" vehicle onto a shortcut... through the desert. She hits a deer (or at least something with antlers), gets out to check on it, and, well, her little boy, playing with her cell phone, puts the vehicle into lockdown mode, trapping him inside. That is some irresponsible s#!t.

I liked the idea of this car, and where car technology is taking us. For the bulk of this film, anyhow, it seems like a feasible place in the future to go. A vehicle that takes safety to the nth degree, and you can have a conversation with it! (complete with A. I. communication barriers).

Unfortunately, not much happens in this film. There is a character set up where you kind of grow to dislike bad mom, but at the same time feel a little bad for her. Then she gets locked out, and spends the rest of the movie making futile attempts to get back in. I actually thought the lead actress (Katrina Bowden) in this was good. She doesn't play it overly dramatic, and I think ultimately grew as a character to not take her son for granted. Then there's this total cop-out of a resolution, that I think is best left undiscussed. It does raise a number of unanswered questions.

I am a fan of movies with a very small cast, limited locations, isolation. It held my interest enough to give it 5 stars.

Everything is armored and automatic, is that safe, or rather a recipe for disaster? Well, find out when a suspective wife takes a completely unnecessary trip through LA desert. Surprisingly it is not unwatchable, and does keep the suspense going throughout the movie, however a few things really keeps it in the lower bracket of entertainment:

First - child is crying all the time, alarms are beeping, woman is shouting, it is just pathetic and unpleasant in a way that it does not advance the movie anywhere.

Second - the main character, Sandra, has every negative trait in the book, she is jealous, irresponsible, clingy, weak (physically and mentally), bad decision maker etc etc. You just want to throw something at the screen due to her stupid actions. At least she is a cute singer...

Third - for the life of me I could not understand why she took her child with her and not left him with her mother-in-law, even if she did decide to drive to LA, what was she hoping to do there with the child?

I think overall rank is somewhere between 4 and a 5, I decided to be generous and give it a 5 due to being at least interesting for the most part. Watch if are planing to buy a Cybertruck :-) Exact score: 45 / 100.

This movie has its issues but it also has entertainment value. If you enjoy endless vistas of desolate mountains then even if you don't care for the film itself, the heavy reliance on breathtaking shots of the multi-coloured Utah (likely the Paria mountains).

Beyond the geology and macho car, the kid is good and the hopeless terror of the protagonist is sometimes genuine, other times humorously not.

I'm Italian but I have not been part of it. The film is not perfect (many mistakes by the plot and the actors) but I was very convinced of the concept of the story, taken from an Italian graphic novel. The protagonist might be less stupid, but the things he does go hand in hand with the plot context. The film deserves, a great innovation in Italian cinema, and a good bet for foreigners.